Looking for Isabella
by Ballooney
Summary: Based on Thicker than Blood by MIAuthor. Elizabeth Cullen sets off on a roadtrip to understand how she became Edward Cullen's only child.
1. Edward - 31

_Three Months - December_

Outside, it's hailing. Pellets of ice hit the windows, followed by ricocheting rain. The wind beats against the glass. Inside, Dr. Edward Cullen curls his body around the bassinet, afraid that if he moves, the baby will be vulnerable to the elements.

The baby is such a beauty. She has a pert little nose, blonde fuzzy hair and enormous eyes. Edward is fascinated by her little lashes, by the dimples on her little fists. He is as terrified that she will stop breathing as he is that his breaths will wake her.

His blood boils when he hears something louder.

The roar of an engine announces somebody's presence. Edward stills, then stiffens. His head whips to the left. His head whips to the right. He probably looks like a neurotic meerkat.

He trusts somebody else will deal with the commotion. For the past month or so, since the baby was released from the hospital, his entire family's life has grounded to a halt. Alice, Emmett and Jasper have been keeping vigil around him, coordinated by his mother. They are terrified of leaving him alone with the baby.

Then he tilts his head towards the baby. She is still sleeping soundly, a gorgeous little bean with both of her little fists by her head. Gingerly, he brushes his fingers along the bridge of her nose. Tears sting his eyes as he is overcome by humility and anxiety that squeeze his stomach violently. _I always_ _wanted you to be the father, _Isabella had stressed, so intensely and with such certainty that he never doubts it happened. _I _want _you to be her father, Edward. _Thinking about those words, both poignant and crippling, he has to bite down on his fist. He cries.

_Promise me. _

When he hears the commotion; thundering up the stairs, both Emmett and Jasper's raised voices, blood starts to pound in his ears. His heart is beating so intensely he fears he'll vomit.

"Bro, you need to come downstairs right now," Emmett huffs breathlessly.

Furious, Edward hisses at his brother, gesturing at the baby. "I'm not leaving her," he affirms, unsettled by the pleading undercurrent of his voice. "I _can't _leave her."

Emmett, for the first time in weeks, looks aggressively impatient. "Ed, I'm not fucking around," he says seriously. "Use the baby monitor. She'll be fine."

It's the first time he leaves the baby of his own volition; he turns on the baby monitor and places it a few inches from her fist, afraid the baby will stop breathing. Heart pounding, he inches away from the bassinet. Emmett, despite everything, looks sympathetic. "She's a little trooper," he says reverently. "She'll be fine."

* * *

_15 Months - December_

Not long after what they'll call the February incident, the entire family leaves Seattle for Chicago. Edward settled into his old apartment with the baby, Elizabeth.

The winter in Chicago, Edward finds, is more aggressive than the winter in Seattle. Though the distance comforts him, he worries about the effect of the cold on the baby. In fact, Edward worries about the baby relentlessly. Just a week earlier, the smell of Pinol and Mr. Muscle triggered an asthma attack on the baby; he fired the maid almost immediately. He's terrified that spring will hurt her - more than he did just by meeting her mother.

The idea of exposing the baby, even for a second, to the elements, gives Edward anxiety. He's preparing like a soldier to carry her out the Volvo, through his parents driveway, and into their home to celebrate Christmas. He rather hoped they would celebrate inside the apartment, but his mother insists on forcing Edward and Elizabeth out of their apartment at every opportunity. After all the ways his family have adjusted their lives, after the ways they have sacrificed, Edward finds he cannot self-isolate. The baby needs a family.

"We're alright, aren't we, darling?" Edward mumbles peeking at the baby through the rearview mirror once he has parked.

He enjoys dressing his little girl. Alice enjoys 'pushing his credit card to its full potential', buying things that even Edward admits are cute as all fuck. Today, she wears a peach-pink curduroy romper with a thick white cardigan and little suede boots. Edward's become adroit at combing her hair, and the little ribbons on both her pigtails look precious.

With obsessive care, and studies the ice on the ground before exiting the car. He leaves the heater on; unstraps the baby and lifts her to his chest, nuzzling her cheek. "It's a little cold, sweetheart," he coos apologetically. Taking measured steps, he stuffs her Michelin arms into a thick winter coat and covers her little shell ears with a hat.

Cradling the baby, he walks gingerly up the step and knocks. He doesn't quite give a fuck that he sounds like he's been lost in the Alaskan wilderness.

"There she is!" Esme cries happily when she opens the door. Though she glares at Edward from the corner of her eye, she only has eyes for Elizabeth. She pries the baby, who is just as happy to see her, from Edward's arms."There's my baby!"

Once the best part of the reunion between grandmother and granddaughter is over, Esme looks at Edward. Her second son breaks her heart. It's been such a struggle with Edward since he let Isabella Swan into his life. "Hello, darling," she says, kissing his cheek.

"Mother," Edward manages. He is aware that his voice has acquired a rasp, coarse quality to it. He sounds, unfortunately, like Darth Vader without James Earl Jones' deep baritone. He smokes like a chimney whenever his mother takes care of the baby, trying to curtail his anxiety, and sleeps very little.

That he _has _turned into a bit of a sociopath is mostly a side-effect of the year he's had. Edward walks around like a zombie, eyes deep inside his purpled sockets, invariably with a three-day-old stubble carpeting gaunt cheeks. As if inversely matching her father's physical decline, Elizabeth thrives despite everything. She's all smiles, pearly little teeth, peachy cheeks.

Edward is happy to hand the baby off to his mother; he returns to turn off the car completely and bring out a diaper bag. By the time he walks back into the house, his mother has snatched the baby away and is showing her off to Rosalie _fucking _Hale.

Elizabeth studies Rosalie with muted fascination, hiding behind Esme's caramel-colored locks. Rosalie is smiling dotingly at the baby, offering her hand. Edward stiffens like a Rottweiler and marches over to his mother. Rosalie has the decency to cower.

Like a petulant child, Esme swings the baby away from Edward. "_I'm _spending time with my baby," she says, like a child sharing a toy. Edward scoffs but turns to Rosalie, glowering.

"What are you doing here, Rosalie?" Edward sneers. The memory of the third-to-last encounter between Isabella and Rosalie prickles in his skin. Rosalie, however, has the decency to look ashamed. Unlike last time, she seems to shrink into her self and looks up at Edward almost imploringly. Emmett lumbers towards the two of them and wraps his arm around Rosalie, looking at Edward warningly.

"Rosalie and I are back together, Edward," he says. "We've been together for a while now."

Edward takes several beats to process the information. Edward is reminded of the all that Emmett — and Jasper, and Alice — did for him last year. Lifting into the back of the Jeep and out into the river; buying camping gear…Being complicit out of love. The maelstrom of emotion rages; Emmett watches it carefully.

"Edward," Rosalie says. "I was so sorry to hear about Isabella. She —" Edward hisses in a breath of air, as if in pain, stiffening.

Noticing, Rosalie shrunk visibly into Emmett.

"Is," Edward supplies acidly, softening at the compliment for the mother of his only looks to be on the verge of tears, which Edward finds strangely satisfying.

"— a beautiful person, in every way," she finishes meekly. "And I was so glad she forgave me the last —"

"Though you don't deserve it," he spits through gritted teeth.

"I don't," she agrees.

Emmett is hovering by protectively, and Edward feels nothing but gratitude for Emmett. Emmett, who has been complicit in everything. He owes Emmett this much.

"I'm glad you agree," Edward tells Rosalie, so politely it hurts. Grimacing, Edward turns on his heel and stomps away, surprised to find ... Alice strewn across Jasper's lap, cradling a mug of Christmas nearly chokes on his own saliva.

_"_Jasper?" Edward wonders out loud.

"Dude, you look like shit," Jasper says, managing to sound joking, sympathetic and sad. That being said, he walks over and pulls Edward into a one-armed hug.

"You still look like shit, man," Edward croaks back, smiling. It feels strange to smile at anybody but his baby.

"Seriously, though, Ed, you need to reconsider your —" Edward's attention, however, has drifted to the baby. He nearly chokes on his own saliva a bit later, when he finds Rosalie bouncing Elizabeth up and down on her knee an hour later. Emmett looks on gratefully when Edward huffs his agreement and sits across from them.

He _does _choke on his own saliva when Alice kisses Jasper, Spider-man style, right after dinner.

* * *

_18 Months - June_

Without fail, his parents spend Sunday afternoons with Edward and his daughter. Carlisle is playing with Elizabeth on the floor. The baby, the littler of the blondes, is sitting, propped up by a support ring, giggling at motorized dog that barks and sings. The older of the two blondes sits cross-legged in front of her, happy to turn it on and off relentlessly. Though everything from light to temperature irritates Edward lately, he loves the puppy just because the baby does. Esme is sitting on the armchair.

"We need a nanny," his mother announces. Suddenly, the fact that his father is nearby, playing with the baby, feels like an ambush to Edward.

As is second nature now, Edward stiffens. "Why?" he demands. "There's no need for you to come by every day if you find it so exhausting," he adds nastily.

Unfortunately, he knows his mother has all the leverage in this situation. He trusts nobody _but _Carlisle and Esme with his child; if they were to stop coming by, he'd likely stop showering or sleeping altogether. Alice, Emmett and Jasper he trusts theoretically, in small bursts.

Used to his nasty little barbs, Esme is relatively unfazed. She takes a deep, sobering breath. "You need to get your life back, Edward."

"This _is _my life," he retorts, gesturing towards the baby. Knowing that he's exaggerating, purposefully misreading her, Edward continues spewing vitriol. "Would you rather I dump her off with that white trash in Florida? With that obese cop and alcoholic redskin in middle-of-nowhere?"

"You know _exactly _what I mean, Edward. Most single parents rely on nannies," Esme half-snaps, half-begs.

"So what then? Leave her with some horny seventeen-year-old looking to earn ten bucks an hour?" Edward says rhetorically, barking out a frosty laugh that has the baby gazing at him curiously, eyes crossing.

"Edward," Carlisle cautions sharply. Despite everything, Edward stops spitting out venomous insults. He knows he's turned into a vitriolic version of himself. He takes a deep breath and walks towards his baby.

Soothed by the idea of having her near, Edward smiles brightly at Elizabeth, warmed all over as she reaches for him automatically. Cooing, he lifts her up and cuddles her to his chest. As though she does not recognize him, Elizabeth grabs his lips with a starfish hand. Edward presses a kiss to the little digits, then pretends to nibble at them. The baby squeals with delight.

In a gentler voice, Edward continues. "Why don't we just throw her into a pile of glass, mother?"

Esme shakes her head with disappointment, reaching for her purse. To Edward's horror, she pulls out a manilla envelope. Edward's face must look somewhat comical; his mouth drops and he gapes like a goldfish. The baby lets out a peal of laughter that breaks the tension; all three adults gaze at her.

"We've both been thinking about this, Edward," Carlisle says, rising to his feet. He takes the envelope from his wife. "These are all pediatric nurses looking for a slightly less — " at this, both he and Esme exchange a dubious look, "demanding job."

"Why would I hire some lazy c-u-n -" Edward begins immediately - but at Carlisle's piercing look, even at thirty-two, he shuts up fast.

"You are going to hire a 'nanny' because it is deeply unhealthy for a 32-year-old man to limit all his interactions to a two-year-old and his sixty-year-old parents," Carlisle says crisply and sharply, teeming with authority. "And because it's _also _deeply unhealthy for your baby to grow up with a father with separation anxiety that is _literally _devoted to her. This isn't sustainable, Edward."

"And because your father and I have other things that need our attention," Esme says. "You didn't even go to your sister's engagement party. _I _almost didn't go to your sister's engagement party."

"There's nothing to celebrate about Whitlock joining the family," Edward jeers jokingly. His joke falls flat, even on Carlisle, whose eyes twitch at the mention of Jasper Whitlock. The seconds stretch as Esme looks at him imploringly and almost tearfully.

Stressed, addicted and traumatized, Edward is unwilling to let go of the argument. "I _am _sorry you to feel burdened by my baby," Edward seethes nastily.

Esme sucks in a breath; a mother bear, insulted. "You _know _that almost nobody on this planet loves this baby as much as I do," she says evenly, steel in her voice, though her eyes water. Edward does know, and he feels remorseful. The emotion stings. "You have forty-eight hours to read their files. The first interviewee is coming at four on Wednesday."

* * *

Zafrina is the third interviewee. She is in her mid-forties, slim but not delicate, grey around the temple and wrinkled around the eyes. There is something almost regal about her bearing. Against his better judgment, Edward finds he trusts her. She answers his incisive questions with poise. She tells him she quit for a year to care for her partner, who died of breast cancer two months ago. She doesn't crumble under the nastily, purposefully rude questions Edward asks on the subject.

"Dr. Cullen," she says, pinning him with her eerie, amber eyes. "I'm actually curious. Have you been caring for the baby in this state, all this time?"

She asks incisive questions of him in return. He scolds him at the way he bottle feeds the baby. Edward hires her immediately. For the twenty-one years that follow, he never once finds a reason to scold her, despite his best efforts.


	2. Elizabeth - 17

_Seventeen Years - April_

Monday

Elizabeth loves Math, though she would never admit it out loud. When everything else was complicated, Math had an elegant simplicity to it, which meant that Elizabeth enjoys it enormously. In fact, she was so naturally talented that she is the only junior taking AP Calculus with seniors. It was insult added to injury, really. Elizabeth was already…

Weird.

To begin with, she is horribly disproportionate. At thirteen, she grew an enormous pair of breasts that, given her skeletal frame, looked like grapefruits. Her neck had grown absurdly long. For her height, both her hands and feet were child-like and tiny. Burdened by her proportions, Elizabeth tried to stretch sweater season well beyond May, wearing oversized cardigans year-round. It wasn't much of a problem for most of the year in rainy Chicago — except on days like this one. Her pert little nose, smattered with a handful of freckles, gave her a strikingly delicate air. Elizabeth's cheekbones were sharp and pronounced. Next to her tiny, upturned nose, her eyes were huge. They made her look like an owl. Or a toad.

She isn't _ugly, _per se. She knows that much.

Daddy, and an assortment of related people, claim Elizabeth is gorgeous. They are not _entirely_ batshit crazy. Even at the worst of puberty, Elizabeth's face had remained clear; she had not sprouted a single pimple. As her grandmother liked to point out, accosting even unsuspecting strangers, Elizabeth had doe-like, crystalline blue eyes, framed by thick dark lashes.

At that moment, Elizabeth is wearing thickly-rimmed glasses. They conceal the above-mentioned pair of big, doe-like eyes. Golden blonde, her hair falls to the small of her back in thick waves. As Daddy constantly bemoaned, she had a habit of chewing on both her hair and her nails. During Math class, she liked to chewed on wooden pencils kind of aggressively.

"And the limit as X approaches infinity is…?"

The class blinks at Mrs. Norman for a solid two minutes. Elizabeth counts the beats of her wrist watch and sinks into her chair, hoping for Mrs. Norman to pick on _anybody _else. From the corner of her eye, Peter looks at her from the corner of his eye and smirks.

"Elizabeth, you wanna give it a go?"

Blushing, Elizabeth peeks up at Mrs. Norman from underneath her thick, black eyelashes.

"You're the only one that's not looking at me like I'm speaking in Sanskrit." Like adults often do, Mrs. Norman chuckles at her own joke. Elizabeth was fairly sure she was the only person in the class that got the reference. She smiled widely, politely, at Mrs. Norman.

Next to her, Peter snickered.

"Um," she squeaks. "Uh. It's uh…It's zero."

"Right!" Mrs. Norman booms excitedly. Next to Elizabeth and Peter's table, Cassidy Reynolds jumped. "Right. How d'you figure that out?"

"Well, algebraically, the…uh, the denominator is infinity and the numerator is a constant. So the quotient is gonna get tinier and tinier as x gets larger, almost approaching _th_ero. And eh…Visually, mmh…"

Adding insult to all kinds of injuries, if particularly nervous, she sometimes lisped.

"You don't have to play dumb, Button," Peter mumbles into her ear, sounding irritated. The motion makes her tingle - from the edge of her jaw and into the pit of her stomach. Peter always smelled faintly of leather and apples. There should not have been anything tantalizing about his scent, but there…there was. Elizabeth's blush deepened. If she could, Elizabeth would kick him under the table. Instead, she elbows him in the ribs.

"You can tell that the Y-asymptote is going up into infinity," Elizabeth continues, more confidently.

"Ten points for Gryffindor!" Norman says excitedly. "Perfect answer."

Again, Mrs. Norman looks excitedly at the class, waiting for signs of life. A deafening silence ensued. Elizabeth grinned at Mrs. Norman, but she was the only one to do so in a class of twenty-plus kids.

"Really? None of you are Harry Potter fans?"

Shyly, Elizabeth raises her hand. In fact, she purposefully made it look like she was flexing her elbow. No one else was raising their hand.

Elizabeth treasures her mother's original set more than most of her possessions and kept it faithfully by her bedside table. Elizabeth had read her favorite one, _Half-Blood Prince,_ so often that the spine had fallen apart.

"You love those damn books," Peter said peevishly. "Don't lie."

"Ssh," Elizabeth hissed.

Resigned, Mrs. Norman tried to get someone else to answer the following question. Again, the teacher was met again with deafening silence. Elizabeth sank into her chair as if wanting to make herself smaller. She untucked her hair from behind her ear and let fall across her face, as if the tendrils of hair could hide her. She can practically _feel _Peter roll his eyes.

"Button," he says, exasperatedly. "Stop playing dumb."

"Well, then," Mrs. Norman sighs, conceding defeat. "Since most of you are brain dead already, it's time to call it a day. It's almost 3:15 anyway."

Immediately, the classroom begins to buzz with excitement. Zippers opened and closed; chairs scraped against the floor; people began chattering. As per usual, Elizabeth makes a show of slowly gathering her books and of sticking an assortment of pencils into their case. Her routine is never slow enough: as per usual, she waits for her classmates to file out of the classroom, reminding her vaguely of both herding cattle and a stampede. Her classmates aren't exactly patient with her. "You don't have to wait," she mumbles, peeking at Peter from underneath her thick, dark eyelashes.

A flash of irritation flashes across Peter's face. Like so many of his facial gestures, the frown is gone in a blink.

"Don't be stupid, button," he says. "Of course I'll wait."

No matter what Peter ever did, he did it with an air of indifferent nonchalance. Peter always sported a leather jacket school authorities hadn't been able to ban. When she does go to games and happened to go to his practices, Peter wraps her up in that jacket. It always smells strongly of leather and faintly of Peter's shampoo. Invariably, the inside pocket had a pack of Marlboro lights and a pair of aviators. Elizabeth had _heard, _but dared not confirm, that Peter occasionally stored weed in the front pocket.

"Do you want to come to the game tonight?" Peter asks casually, while they were waiting, twirling a pencil in his hand.

For the past year or so, in part thanks to Elizabeth's forceful nudging, Peter had joined the soccer team and gotten his act together. Even then, he wouldn't abandon that bad boy persona. Elizabeth was convinced he could not, and in any case, did not _want _him to. (That, too, was one of those things that she rarely admitted to herself, except in her most self-deprecating moments).

"Uh…"

Elizabeth always has a hard time answering that question. The gravel makes it so difficult for her to navigate the stadium.A part of her — a tiny, tiny part of her that she regularly quashed down — loved the feeling of being wrapped up in his jacket, perched on the bleachers, while a gaggle of other girls glared at her from down below.

"Are you doing something tonight, then?" Peter demands, an undercurrent of both anger and hurt underneath his carefully studied indifference. Peter had a tendency to overestimate the excitement of her social life.

"What if I were?" Elizabeth replies, with equally studied indifference.

Peter's face darkens immediately. "Playing Guns, Bombs and Dragons," he said nastily.

"Dungeons and dragons_,_" Elizabeth corrected, and then blushed. She was so _dorky._

"With the Cheney boy?"

Purported beauty and popular cousins notwithstanding, Elizabeth ranked as high in the social hierarchy as the borderline-Amish son of their High School's authoritarian principal. She loved him _dearly._

"I don't know why you _care _so much, if its a lot less cool cool than…" she countered acidly, her tone alternating between playful and sharp. "I…I don't know trying to snort…you know, _coke_."

Elizabeth's voice grew squeakier as she wrapped up her statement. She turned a shade darker than the pink cashmere sweater he wore. Peter snorted and then laughed. Elizabeth burst out laughing as well.

"I should've never let you watch Wolf of Wall Street."

"Let me?" Elizabeth retorted, arching her eyebrow with a sly grin.

The joke broke the tension and distracted her while her classmates filed out. All but one.

With her stomach dropping, Elizabeth noticed that the last girl to file out was Stephanie Reynolds. Stephanie lingered by the doorway, ankles crossed. Elizabeth's stomach dropped. She didn't particularly like Peter's latest friend-with-benefits and she was almost entirely certain the feeling was mutual. Stephanie was one of hundreds of people that spoke to her as if she were three years old. Though Peter had barked at her for it later, Stephanie had patted Lizzie _on the head. _Lizzie was used to being accosted by strangers and acquaintances alike every day and had grown grudgingly tolerant of people's relentless gaffes. That did not mean she enjoyed them.

"Are we waiting for Elizabeth?" Stephanie demanded of Peter.

"I am," he responded acidly. "You probably shouldn't."

Elizabeth didn't hear their exchange. She was too intensely focused on the task ahead of her. No matter how much Daddy barked at the various administrative offices, the desks were too narrowly packed together. Keeping her bag in her lap, Elizabeth grabbed the push rims of her wheelchair. Rolling backwards, she expertly executed a three-point turn to maneuver out of the desk. Once she was out of the desk, she turned in her chair to hang her bag from her chair handles. Careful not to ram into any legs, she was relieved to cross the threshold out into the hallway.

Elizabeth was the only student at Sidwell Friends in a wheelchair.

The first days of school, especially after summer break, everyone _stared. _Within days, however, she became invisible, and was frequently rammed into, nearly knocked over, smacked across the face or hit by wayward backpacks.

Peter elicited attention for an entirely different reason. Having Peter by her side made it slightly easier to wheel past hoards of High Schoolers.

Peter had grown into a gorgeous young man, with sharp cheekbones and stubble to match. ("You 'forget' to shave just to prove that you can," she teased him once, touching her fingers gingerly to the prickly hairs. Peter caught her hand on his cheek before she pulled it away). Peter… _well…_Elizabeth tried hard not to think about how attractive Peter was. It made her stomach churn unpleasantly with a mix of muted sadness and intense embarrassment.

They approached her locker, located on the bottom row. Eric Cheney, Elizabeth's best friend, was propped in front of Elizabeth's locker, knees bent to his chest. Eric had been Elizabeth's closest friend for as long as she could remember. As little kids, the two of them had been drawn together by their mutual shyness and unusually small height. Eric had remained stalwartly by her side ever since.

"Move, cocksucker," Peter barked, with a tinge of malicious glee as they approached Elizabeth's locker. Eric shot up to his feet but edged closer to Isabella's locker.

"_Peter!" _Elizabeth snapped, as Eric spat a "Fuck you."

Eric's words, however frigid, did not have the desired effect: Peter lurched forward and glowered. Elizabeth's eyebrows, a shade darker than her hair, shot up her forehead.

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" Peter said, cackling.

Eric shoved Peter, to little or no avail. A foot shorter, Eric barely reached the later's shoulder.

Elizabeth spun so quickly that her chair could have tipped over. "_Why _are you being so _mean_?" she snapped furiously at Peter.

"I don't know," Peter said, smiling viciously. "He just brings it out in me."

She glowered at him with absolutely no amusement. "You know better," she said in a low, dry voice. She smacked him hard. It obviously didn't hurt — under her palm, his stomach felt like a washboard— but at least he had the decency to look mildly ashamed.

"Why, why, _why _are you so nasty?" Elizabeth demanded, angrily and (mostly) rhetorically. Most of the time, she willfully ignored how many girls he fucked in broom closets, how many people he punched, how he squandered money left and right, how much coke he snorted. She focused on who he was with _her, _in private. That had become increasingly exhausting.

"Cheney just annoys the fuck out of everybody except you."

Elizabeth let out a frustrated groan.

"I think you should go," Elizabeth said coldly. "Please."

"Elizabeth, I was only kidding."

"Please."

Elizabeth's anger finally struck him. "Elizabeth," he said softly, almost pleadingly. From the corner of his eye, Peter leered at Eric, who smirked with poorly concealed delight.

"Fuck off, Spencer," Eric said gleefully, in a voice that even Elizabeth admitted sounded slightly nasal. Irritated, Elizabeth wheeled towards her locker, nudging them both out of her way. Well accustomed to her, they both jumped out of her way. Sighing, Elizabeth opened the lock."Button, look at me," Peter said softly, in a voice that made a tremor run up her spine. "Button."

Peter had crouched down in front of her chair. Gently, with roughened fingers, he tucked her hair behind her ear. If anyone had been paying attention, they would have seen Eric's eyes narrow with poorly-concealed jealousy; Peter, who was gazing intently at Elizabeth, noticed the rose-colored blush that spread through her cheeks. He felt her shiver when his fingertips lingered on her cheek. Angry at herself for blushing, Elizabeth bristled at his touch. "Elizabeth," he pleaded.

Biting the inside of her cheek, Elizabeth wheeled backwards and closed her locker door. "I think you should go."

Her gaze softened as she looked up at Eric. Cratered and still marred by severe acne, Eric's face was rounded and pudgy. In Middle School, when Elizabeth's wheelchair had turned her into a class pariah, the soft-spoken boy had become her best friend. She _adored _him. While still leering at Peter through her eyelashes, she gave Eric's hand a squeeze.

"Yeah, Spencer," Eric interjected, raising his index finger. "Fuck off."

Though she found Eric's gesture endearing, Lizzie had to resist the urge to slam her hand against her forehead.

* * *

"Lizzie, love? Don't you like your asparagus? I can get the cook to make something different," Daddy offers. Though never a victim of her father's vicious temper, Elizabeth was no stranger to it either. Her stomach summersaulted out of fear for the poor woman's job.

"No, no, Daddy," she says, snapping out of her trance. She's been using her fork to eviscerate the salmon under it, twirling it distractedly with her hand. She grabs her knife and, rather clumsily, splits a green stick in two. She pops it in her mouth. Edward watches her chew, staring so intently she wiggles in her seat, then blushes.

"Is everything alright, darling?" Edward asks after a second of what can only be described as staring. Though his voice croaks, rough and hoarse after years of compulsive smoking, he is very gentle with his only daughter.

"Mmh," she replies, offering a small smile. She goes back to twirling her fork inside her eviscerated salmon. She's never been a hearty eater, in no small measure because she seems to be allergic to _breathing. _She's even mildly allergic to grass.

_ "_Is it really?"

She shrugs noncommittally and takes a small bite of the salmon, eager to chew for a while.

"I noticed that _Peter _wasn't around today," Edward sputters out the name, unused to calling Spencer anything but _a little shit_. The name is spoken like one might describe a pesticide, or a venereal infection. It would normally fill him with glee, but his Lizzie looks so defeated.

"I was so _sure _you thought his name was Little Shit," Elizabeth quipped sarcastically, eager to avoid the subject. She stuffs an entire asparagus stick into her mouth, happy to chew the stem for as long as it takes.

"I choose not to use it. He _is _a little shit," Edward counters. Elizabeth smiles wryly between bites.

Edward didn't just dislike Peter Spencer Whitlock, Jasper's orphaned nephew. Edward almost _hated _him.

After tragic circumstances, the boy — the only son of Charlotte Spencer nee Whitlock — had moved in with his sister and Jasper. As early as their wedding rehearsal dinner, Edward had been suspicious of the little shit, a terror with no sense of propriety who had made Elizabeth cry after the ceremony was over. Throughout their teens, the boy had held a relationship with Elizabeth that Edward found disgusting for a plethora of often conflicting reasons. With time, the Little Shit had become more of a disgusting, leeching little amoeba, and Edward's relationship with Jasper had suffered as a result.

Not once, but several times a week, Eward had come home to find them hanging out, often with his head in her lap. Others, Edward had come home to find them curled around each other in his daughter's bed, her back tucked against his chest, his hand chastely on her hip.

Alice claims that the Little Shit is in love with Elizabeth, which was in itself unforgivable to Edward.

Unfortunately, Edward was also privy to the fact that some poor, unsuspecting girl had _serviced _the little shit in a broom closet during school hours, earning them both suspension. And to the fact that he apparently excelled at returning the favor, as a scandalous affair with a substitute Spanish teacher had proven.

He didn't care to know if his daughter knew or not. In any case, he hoped — he _knew — _Elizabeth was no doormat.

"Speaking of which, what is he doing next year?"

Elizabeth avoids the question. Purposefully, she stabs a large piece of salmon and sticks it in her mouth. Once she is done chewing, she looks up at Edward with her big blue doe-eyes. "He was accepted at Cornell," she tells him, obviously proud. "But he says he's going to stay here at U Chicago —"

For once, the fact that she and Spencer are in love with each other is helpful. "That's wonderful!"

Elizabeth looks at him with sheer confusion. Edward cackles delightedly, prompting Elizabeth to palm her own face. "I would love it if you considered it, too, darling."

"Not now, Dad," she mumbles irritably, as if on a side-note. Through no effort of Edward's, Elizabeth is brilliant and kind, and she filled Edward with awe and adoration. She could go to Princeton or Harvard if she wanted, and Edward would delightedly pay. For a variety of reasons, however, including the fact that Elizabeth is so _fragile, _Edward wants her to stay at home for college. She peers at him exhaustedly.

Whether she is exhausted at _him, _her father, or at that little shithead amoeba is unclear. In any case, the look on her face reminds him that the relationship with Spencer is a double-edged sword.

"The point is," she continues, "he doesn't want his college tuition to cost Uncle Jasper an arm and a leg, so he's taking advantage of in-state fees."

"I though he inherited good money from the Whitlock estate."

"That's held in trust, Dad, and he doesn't want Aunt Ali or Uncle Jasper to dig into their savings."

Unwilling to give the Little Shit a lick of credit, Edward says, "It's not like they wouldn't have the money to loan him." Jasper is, like most doctors, very well-off, and Alice has painstakingly built a fashion empire.

Elizabeth takes the opportunity to test him, eyeing him sharply. "I actually really would love to go to college in the East Coast."

Edward freezes. "That's a discussion for another time, sweetheart. And look at that," he coos delightedly, as if she were seven and not seventeen, "You finished your plate. That calls for dessert. Wouldn't you like some dessert, my love?" He shoves back his chair with maniac energy and whips back and forth, like a maniac.

She rolls her eyes tiredly. "I'm not really hungry, Daddy."

The former Doctor and his only daughter live in an enormous penthouse overlooking the Bean, staffed by a chef, two maids and a chauffeur, in addition to Zafrina. One of the richest men in the city, Edward developed a gift for Megers and Acquisitions after his daughter started pre-school. Since, his fortune has grown exponentially and he devotes his time to investments in the pharmaceutical and real estate industries.

"Thanks for dinner, Daddy," she says softly, arching to press a kiss to his cheek. Melting, Edward obliges.

Lizzie drops her cutlery and pushes her chair back, using her hands. With that, she uses her hands to shift her legs sideways, and then threads her arms through both her crutches.

After years of using a wheelchair, Elizabeth has _just _started "walking" with hand crutches. It's awkward and in lots of ways, more noticeable than her wheelchair. Despite the braces on her legs and the crutches, she couldn't lift her feet from the ground very well; in fact, a metallic dragging and clicking offered a soundtrack to her new ability. _Click, thump, click. _Both doctors and therapists insisted that she try, and she did. She had never really been one to buckle under teenage stares or cruelty.

At home, and occasionally at school, Lizzie uses hand crutches. To use them at all, Lizzie wears leg braces that stretch from the tip of her orthopedic shoes to her hip bones. Even with the crutches to help, she isn't the best at walking. Though neither of her legs responds well to commands, her right leg is particularly stubborn, and it drags behind her. As soon as she has risen to her feet, she wobbles towards Letty, one of the maids, who's come in to clean up their plates.

"Everything was delicious, Letty," she says kindly. Letty, who is still scared shitless of her boss, smiles back and cowers into the corner. "Thank you."

Lizzie has a lovely bedroom in soft pink and white, with a walk-in closet, a four-poster bed and a bay window. Zafrina is waiting for her on the armchair across from her four poster bed, reading. "You ready, darling?"

Smiling, Lizzie nods. It is a little embarassing that even at seventeen, she needs Zafrina's help to shower safely. Zafrina helps her take off her braces once she's sitting on a marble benchtop, built underneath the showerhead. Even though Zafrina's literally seen her naked every day of her life, she's still self-conscious. Lizzie isn't...She doesn't have an ugly body, per se, but her legs were covered in scars, especially her right leg. She's had so much surgery to help her walk that she had scars running down her waist to her ankle. It...It made sense that Peter wasn't attracted to her. She mulls that over as the water started washing over her.

Peter loved her, just found anything else that moved more attractive. How could he be _in love _with her when she was so unattractive?

Lizzie knows, of course. She knows that he worked his way meticulously and apparently diligently through classmates, friend's sisters, substitute teachers, and even the occasional soccer Mom. Each rumor, each tirade, and especially each confirmation felt like a blow to her self-esteem. Peter himself never spoke of, or even admitted to anything Confirmations came by way of grey hairs on Jasper's scalp, long screaming matches, and occasionally, bruises. Lizzie could not blame anybody, really, for succumbing to his charm — with each passing day, he looked more and more like an aloof version of Leo in _Titanic._

The latest scandalous story had been particularly devastating. Peter Spencer had received a blow job during a class field trip to the National Museum of Mexican Art. The story was so sordid and crude that it made her blush ten shades of horrified. Despite the crudeness of the story and its consequences — Peter's paternal grandfather had flown in from Washington and yelled himself hoarse — Peter had become a hero. Suddenly, instead of intimidating half the soccer team, he had become their ringleader.

Nobody, least of all Elizabeth herself, believed she had the right to act scorned. And yet she could not really help it. Peter escorted her with rare discipline every morning to class, perfectly attuned to what she needed, without the slightest hint of pity. More often than not, Lizzie spent lunches sitting by him, wrapped inside his jacket while he smoked or played sports, depending on his mood. And yet, they weren't _together, _together. That's what his many conquests swore regularly.

Luckily, Lizzie mused that night in bed once she was done showering... Luckily, lately, she was upset at _him. _

* * *

_Seventeen Years - April_

Tuesday

The following day, Peter is waiting silently, perched on some tree by the school entrance. As per usual, he looks unintentionally, nonchalantly rebellious in that way only he could pull off. The day was otherwise beautiful, and sun streamed down through golden and orange leaves. He wore aviators and a rusted leather jacket. If he was not in such deep shit with school authorities, Elizabeth thinks, he would probably be smoking. The whole thing made her stomach leap inside her. When his eyes fell on her, he dropped his _Bad Boy_ pose and rushed towards her. He smiled at her, and her knees almost trembled.

As he walked towards her, Peter raised his eyebrows at a crowd that was not-so-discreetly gawping at Elizabeth. Some days, she took her crutches, and others, she took her wheelchair. It depended on how tight her legs felt that day, or how tired she was. Peter, privy to the decision every day, never commented on it.

"Xavier Barrows needs to start tucking his boxers into his pants," he starts to tell her, tongue-in-cheek. "He looks like a fucking baboon with his ass hanging out his jeans."

Despite herself, Lizzie laughed.

Bending slightly at the knees, Peter stooped down in front of her to quickly peck her cheek. Elizabeth half-averted the kiss, tucking her chin into an ivory-colored infinity scarf. She offered a curt, cold little smile in return.

In a well-practiced routine, Peter offered his arm as she dropped her left crutch, allowing him to take her school bag into his shoulder. She gripped onto his thick forearm until her bag was safely on his shoulder. Peter was one of a handful of people that knew how to support her without coddling her. He kept a safe distance from the crutches and supported her back with a warm, calloused palm. Every day, without fail, he helped her like that. Expertly, he kept her steady over an ice-patch on the way to her room.

They walked in increasingly awkward silence, until he broke it.

"Bee?" Pete asked her gently. "You OK?" Many years earlier, Uncle Emmett had started calling her Bee when, at nine, she had worn a bee costume for a spring festival and refused to take it off. As with all of her other childhood nicknames, including Baby Button, the nickname _Bee _was weaponized for Peter's amusement.

Lizzie's reply was curt and sour. "Why wouldn't I be?" she asked, especially herself. She was still upset about his behavior with Eric.

"You look pissy as fuck," Peter mumbled grumpily.

"You're imagining things," Lizzie replied snootily.

Frowning, Peter rushed ahead to hold the door open for her and to glare daggers at the kids that, invariably, lined up behind Elizabeth with impatience. Once she was through, he escorted her to her locker. Despite how unjustifiably hurt she felt about the whole _blow job _affair, she was also kind of thankful — in her case, there was no way to win with lockers. She couldn't use the top ones with her chair, and could not use either of the two with crutches.)

In a hushed tone, she reminded him that her combination was 21-09. He rolled his eyes."You know, Button," he teased her, but the edge was gone. "It's a dumb idea to use your own birthday as a locker combination."

"Yes, well," she scoffed back, more biting than usual. "_I _don't need to change the combination every week because _I'm _not using it as weed storage facility."

When he looked up at her, his eyes were almost soulful. Peter looked hurt at her little barb. He opened her locker more forcefully than usual, and peered inside as if looking into a long-abandoned fridge. "You have English first period, right? Then Bio?" He stuffed her green and blue notebooks, and looked hesitantly at the fatter textbook before stuffing it in.

"Where's your English novel?" he asked her, trailing off as he peered into her schoolbag. "You're such a _geek, _Liz. Literally the only person in the entire school that reads it."

"_Geeks _are people that are really into their fandoms," she corrected, and then mentally scolded herself for being _such a nerd_. "The right word is _nerd._"

"I stand corrected," he said sarcastically.

His tone shifted when he stood back up, pulling her book bag over his shoulder."Can I still walk you to Bio? You shouldn't be hauling that big ass Bio brick everywhere."

"I can do it," she snapped, and then regretted it instantly — not because she _couldn't, _technically, but because it made balancing harder.

"I wasn't implying that you couldn't…" he said grumpily, offering his forearm and gently placing the book bag on her shoulder. He looked her over to make sure she wouldn't fall, and then sighed defeatedly.

He glared at her but made no further comment. As he turned on his heel to walk away, she felt compelled to yell after him, "And I'm having lunch with Erick."

She couldn't tell if that upset him or not.

* * *

At lunch time, Peter invariably sat with a whole cadre of girls that didn't understand the concept of personal space. It made Lizzie furious, but she.. she was having lunch with Eric, and technically, had no right to feel possessive.

Peter zeroed in on her as she walked in. She glowered at him; he narrowed his eyes and shifted away from Stephanie Reynolds, who was leaning entirely on Peter. Pointedly, Lizzie smiled beautifully at Erick, thanking him. Erick helped her with her lunch tray, promising to get his lunch in another round. Lifting as best she could, Lizzie took a tentative step behind lifted her left crutch, placing it ham-handedly in front of her, trying to maintain a narrower square of personal space. The lunch line was too narrow for her, though she liked being able to see the hot lunch options.

She took another step. Unsteadily, she lifted her right arm. Uselessly, her right leg didn't follow along. In the split second that it bore all her weight, her left leg buckled despite the support from the braces.

Lizzie cries out as she falls, knocking the person in front of her over. She sounds like a pig being flayed; tears stung her eyes, more out of embarrassment than pain. There was a collective 'Ah!' The gasp seemed to go on forever, ringing in her ears. Her face feels hotter than Siracha. She felll flatly against the stainless steel countertop and knocked over the stanchion that marked the line.

It was something that happened so frequently, and yet she still wanted to cry.

In front of her, Erick had tripped up and his uniform Oxford shirt was covered in marinara. Angrily, Erick patted down at his Marinara, looking at everything but at Elizabeth. "Erick?" she croaked stupidly. "Are you OK? I'm so sorry!" .

"Lizzie?" Peter's warm hands grasped her shoulders.

"I'm okay, I'm okay," Liz was quick to call, even though her palms and shins felt like they were on fire. "Just clumsy."

"Is that blood? Is she bleeding?" Lizzie heard Erick's panicked voice.

Peter's fingers swept over her leg from the knee down, which made her turn tomato red. Her hands were trembling. "I think she just bruised it. Same with her palms."

Then Peter turned to look at her face. Her eyes were glassy with tears; one slipped down her cheek. The embarassement burned and she looked down at the floor.

"Hey, hey, hey," he said gently but forcefully, lifting her by the chin. "Most of these fuckers can barely count to a thousand. There's no reason to be embarassed, darlin'."

He pressed his lips to Lizzie's brow.

"Up we go," he said gently, almost playfully. He tucked a hand under her knees and another under her back, carying her bridal style. He stood, bringing her with him. He plopped her down on the closest empty table and knelt down to study both her palms. Her hands were still trembling; when she looked up at him, her eyes were stinging with tears.

"It's OK, baby," he said softly, and then rolled his eyes as he gestured at the table around him. He swept her hair away and gently wiped a bit of marinara from her cheek. "This cafeteria has seen a lot worse by a lot dumber."

Despite herself, Lizzie laughed at the twang with which he said it.

Peter ran off to fish out her crutches, then studiously wiped the marinara off both the handles. Oddly, Erik had disappeared; that gave her time to study the white sweater she wore, which was also stained. The more she tried to dab at it with a napkin, the more it turned into an ugly pink. With every swipe, her face turned hotter. He came back quickly and plopped down next to her. When he noticed she was still shaking, he lifted her onto his lap, letting her relax against his chest. She felt so warm and comforted that she stopped shaking.

They stayed like that for a couple of minutes. Lizzie was happy to hear that the cafeteria was returning to its normal hum.

"I'm going to look like _Carrie,_" she mumbled wetly against his neck.

"Nah, I can lend you this," Peter offered, pinching his white Oxford, at the worried look on her face. Noticing she was still shaking, he wrapped an arm around her and threaded his fingers through hers.

She looked at him uncertainly, big blue eyes wide. "And then what will you do?"

"I have one of my Jerseys," he said with a shrug, stabbing a stable Ravioli and popping it in his mouth. "Just, ya know, spray it with Axe or something."

"You're going to smell like a thirteen-year-old boy," she pointed out, but gave his hand a grateful squeeze.

Peter laughed heartily and hugged her tighter.

Before long, Peter is patrolling the handicapped stall by Lizzie's US government class, waiting for her ruined sweater. He hands her a crumpled up Oxford. He brushes his fingers along her wrists before helping her fold them neatly onto each other. The Oxford shirt looks baggy but oddly stylish atop a pair of skinny jeans.

"See? Now you look like Carrie Bradshaw."

She raised her eyebrows but giggled. "If you can reference Sex and the City like that, you've seen it too many times."

"It kind of grew on me after Alice watched it for the hundredth time," he told her. "Miranda's actually kind of OK."

* * *

_Seventeen Years - April_

_Thursday_

On Thursday afternoon, Elizabeth finds out that Peter...regressed back to his old form. He punched Eric Yorkie, who walks around sporting a blue bruise, for bailing on Elizabeth and being upset about his stupid t-shirt. And, in addition to punching Eric, Peter goes back to fucking Stephanie Reynolds.

Elizabeth is using the bathroom when she heard Stephanie Reynolds walk in, sobbing, accompanied by her ladies-in-waiting.

"I asked him if he could take me out somewhere after we did it," Stephanie had said sniffily, before sobbing again. Elizabeth sucked in a breath.

"He drove us through the McDonald's drive-thru in that old BMW and then _asked me to pay for my own fries._" Her voice grew shill as she finished with a devastated squeak. The noise that came out of Elizabeth, something between a whimper and a snort, was lost by Stephanie's ensuing wails.

"And I had just - had just," Stephanie continued tearfully, "He's...I know he can be so sweet. Look at him with…with that cripple —"

There were soft titters and gasps before someone, whom Elizabeth recognized as Julia Hertog, interjected with "— She is crippled," she pointed out nastily. "She walks like a Gorilla fucked a slug."

Lest she cry, Elizabeth dorkily focused on the fact that the right phrasing would have been 'like the child of a gorilla fucking a slug.' She heard them cry, titter and bitch for a while - and then she hugged her stomach.

She did not want come out after hearing _that _particular comment, especially because in the crutches she would have reaffirmed their point. So Lizzie waited. And she listened to them puzzling over a relationship that she herself did not understand.

Like Elizabeth, these girls were confused about the occasional feather-light kisses Peter would place on the tip of her nose. So charming. So handsome. They didn't get the little surprises he left in her locker sometimes, the way he placed both hands on her cheekbones and then stroked the bridge of her nose. So sweet. So romantic. Cousins did not experiment with the many ways fingers could be intertwined. Seattle was not Kentucky. They weren't really cousins, some reasoned — Peter was the blood nephew of Elizabeth's uncle by marriage.

They were not friends either, not in the traditional sense. They, that group of girls, sat with Peter at lunchtime and cheered him on at games. They clumsily danced with him at High School parties, rubbing their ass against his crotch; they kissed him in broom closets and he played with whatever was underneath his trousers. Only Elizabeth knew that Peter spooned up to Elizabeth once the parties ended, climbing up old vines and rusted pipes, smelling of alcohol and tobacco.

Like them, Elizabeth had reached the conclusion that Peter was either embarrassed to date someone with a severe disability _or _was sexually repulsed by her. Both ideas had made her stick to her bathroom stall, without really crying.

* * *

_Seventeen Years - April_

_Friday_

Lizzie is surprised to find Peter sitting in front of her locker on Friday morning, wearing those glasses that make him look…_oddly sexy. _He had rolled his sleeves up his forearms, and it made him look even cuter. Embarrassed by her own thought, she blushed and lowered her gaze as she approached her own locker. He fixed her with a mossy, green stare as she approached. Despite the intensity of his stare, his voice is gentle.

"Are you mad at me?" Peter asks softly. "You didn't answer any of my texts."

She _is _mad, but she's also irritated. Though she'll never voice it out loud, she's been thinking about the fact that he's allowed to screw anything that moves like a dog in heat. Erick so much as looks at her, however, and he acts possessive and nasty. Besides, though he outgrew it many years ago, Lizzie was subjected to mild versions of Peter's cruel streaks. The truth is, he is a _massive, _unmitigated asshole. Lizzie _hated _Elizabeth Reynolds, but that didn't give Peter to fuck and then take her to a drive-thru.

She feels stupid for pining after him, on too many levels.

"What do you think?" She nudges him away from the locker by poking him with the footrest of her wheelchair. "You _punched _Erick, you ass."

Distracted, Peter's gaze falls to her feet. She is wearing a pair of suede ankle-boots — not the orthopedic gear she uses to walk.

Just having him _look _at her feet makes her feel horribly crippled. "Shouldn't you be walking more often?" he asks, puzzled.

She snorts. "I think calling what I do _walking _is a bit of a stretch," she points out, tongue-in-cheek.

"You put one foot in front of the other and get places," he says fiercely, turning to search her eyes. "That's good enough for me."

The comment hurts.

"_Is it?_" Elizabeth demands abruptly, surprised at her own outburst.

Stupidly, his mouth falls open. He squints at her as though he's confused she _is _Elizabeth and not some kind of impersonator. "What? Why?" His voice is high-pitched.

Afraid to be caught in her crush, she shakes her head and grabs her Chemistry textbook, placing it on her lap. "Never mind. I'll eh…I guess I'll see you at Sunday brunch? I'm having lunch with Eric."

For the first time in a while, Peter was thankful she couldn't easily see his grimace.

* * *

In fact, Zafrina and Daddy — to his credit — have done everything in their power to make her life perfect, paying neurotic attention to detail. Alice picks out outfits, not just clothes, and she is always dressed in them. She wears the outfits obediently; in this case, she wears a warm gray cashmere turtleneck underneath a navy peacoat, coupled with a square-patterned skirt. Zafrina packs her gorgeous sandwiches, salads and fruit. Today, she asked for two lunch bags. Both have sandwiches in sourdough bread with pesto, fresh mozzarella and sliced turkey.

Feeling responsible for Peter's outburst earlier, Elizabeth makes it up to Erick by bringing them both chocolate turtles and snickerdoodles.

Erick gleefully, and gratefully, discards the Lunchable he packed in haste. Once they've eaten their sandwiches, she takes a small bite of her chocolate turtle. They're eating outside because the cafeteria is unbearably stuffy; they are are both pensive as they eat underneath a tree. Above, the sky is threatening rain.

It's impossible not to notice that Eric is a little insane about her; he does not really touch her, but he stares at her a lot. She'll catch him staring in English, Biology and Spanish class. In all instances, the intensity of his stare makes her blush.

Perhaps because of it, Erick has always been very sweet — for her birthday last year, he gave her an enormous stuffed Velveteen rabbit with an original copy of the books, knowing she loved reading to her Mom, and that Velveteen was the first book Lizzie ever read to Isabella, aged five. Not that Peter was not sweet, or thoughtful.

Whereas Elizabeth was ostracized for an obvious disability, Erick was ostracized for being weird. Granted, he is not exactly good-looking; his skin is shiny all over, pox-marked with bad acne. He grows a tiny little beard that Peter gleefuly describes as "pubes strung together." Watching him eat, she understands. He uses all ten fingers to dismember his sandwich, eating with the nervous anxiety of a famished dog. Sometimes, it makes her uncomfortable. Daddy's hatred for Eric sometimes rivals his hatred of Peter.

"You've been really quiet," Eric points out, midbite. Lizzie wrinkles her nose at the sight of the half-chewed pretzel and gooey chocolate in his mouth.

"Sorry, I've just been thinking…" She trails off...

"Oh."

"Do you think I'm pretty?" Lizzie blurts. Though she's not overtly aware of what she's doing, Lizzie will look back on that moment realizing that the way she peeked at him from underneath her eyelashes, blue eyes wide, was asking for Eric's response.

Audibly, Eric gulps. He freezes for several seconds. Then inches over. Involuntarily, Lizzie inches backwards, sitting back in her wheelchair. The silence stretches around them, and Erick summons the courage to do things that happen in quick succession.

"You'rethemostbeautifulgirl in the entire school," he breathes out in a garbled breath. Then, he leaps. He places both of his hands on the back of Elizabeth's head and proceeds to lap up her mouth. The shock is so intense that it takes her several moments to finally push him away, hands on his shoulders. He smells like dried sweat and his tongue tastes like turkey.

It's her first kiss, and its both disappointing and a little gross. For minutes, she's frozen in the spot, horrified at the wetness of the whole thing.

"Stop, stop," she croaks as she pulls away. She's unable to curtail her grimace, the way the pesto has started to churn in her stomach.

Again, she gazes at him, big blue eyes threatening tears. "Eric, I — " Before she finishes the sentence, Erick backs away. His head whipping back and forth. "I'm sorry, Lizzie," he gasps in horror, and scurries away.

He runs.

Like a balloon, she deflates back onto her chair, staring mindlessly at the trees in front of her. It feels like its about to rain. Blinking back tears, feeling both victimized and bitchy, she pops a Listerine mint into her mouth and swirls it around, and then…hears chuckling. She turned in her chair and let out a horrified screech.

Then Peter smiled, pearly teeth bright against the emerald green, looking like the Cheshire cat. Underneath a thicket of dark green trees and clouded by a torrential rain, Peter is barely visible. His irises sparkled around dilated pupils, his eyes incandescent against a pitch-dark backdrop. Elizabeth feels her face burn with embarassment. Did he just..? Did he just _see that_?

"I've always thought his breath stinks," Peter snorted disdainfully, crawling out from the undergrowth and approaching her.

"You're such an asshole. Did you _spy on us_?" Elizabeth screeched into the blur of rain and wet, emerald leaves. She didn't care that she sounded shrill, like Stephanie when Peter took her to a McDonalds Drive-Thru after she solicitously sucked his cock. "What the fuck, Peter?"

Peter didn't even look offended. "He looked for me after you left yesterday. I kind of admired him for it, actually. If he weren't so prissy, he would've probably fucked me up. Told me that I always hurt you by fucking around with other girls, and that I should've let him make a move. I laughed in his face and told him he wouldn't have the balls to make a move even if he was the last fucker alive."

Though the rain trickled past his leather jacket without soaking it, his otherwise light brown hair had darkened several shades. He sauntered towards her. Then he burried his face in his hands. "And I am sorry. I didn't think that would backfire on you like that," he told her, too apologetic to sound acidic."You didn't even look like you _liked _it."

For a second, Elizabeth struggled to respond. The anger and mortification swirling in her stomach was blocking her windpipes.

"You didn't like it," he repeated, inching towards her slowly. Lizzie's neck strained as she leered up at him; raindrops fell into her eyes. He never did that to her; he always made sure to crouch or sit so that they were eye-to-eye. Guiltily, he changed his position. Peter bent at the waist; his nose brushed up against hers.

"Wouldn't you like a real kiss?"

Breathlessly, Elizabeth nodded. Blue eyes big and wide, she nodded. And nodded again.

She watched him process her response, at first confused. He frowned and then, very slowly, began to smile.

With that, Peter pressed a closed-mouthed kiss to her lips. Slowly, he increased the pressure, as if gingerly asking her to open her mouth. She responded, and slowly, he took her lower lip between both of his. The raindrops that trickled from the tousles of his hair fell across his cheekbone and fell across her chin. Elizabeth opened her mouth further, tasting both metallic rain, cigarette smoke and hints of peppermint on her tongue. The tip of his tongue ventured into her mouth; Elizabeth sucked at it greedily, surprised at the feeling that flared in the pit of her stomach.

Trailing along the curve where her waist met her hips, Peter's fingers suddenly clawed at her very practical bra. With a jolt, Elizabeth pulled away. The rain had trickled between her collar and down her spine. Inside, she felt warm all over.

Once he was done, Peter pressed his forehead against hers. Gazing at him so intently she could see the gold flecks in his hazel eyes, Elizabeth finished with one last, close-mouthed kiss to his mouth.

Somehow, Elizabeth knew that his kiss had ruined her for all others.


	3. Edward - 33

**Pardon the tenses.**

* * *

_Four Months_

Edward is alone when the doorbell rings. Usually, Esme spends the days – and sometimes, the nights – with Edward and Elizabeth. He thinks – oddly – that though it breaks heart, Esme is happy that he has a family.

And yet. The situation in which that family came to be has slowly withered her down. Edward thinks his mother has aged more in the past six months than in the last ten years. On a particularly sunny, warm day in March, he gently urges her to go home for a couple of hours.

Once his mother is gone, Edward braves sitting outside with the baby. He dresses her snugly, thinking that – not unlike her beautiful mother – she might enjoy the sun.

For a while there, he feels at peace. The baby gurgles happily, big, gorgeous blue eyes bright. He thinks that when the baby is older, those eyes are going to drive a handful of idiot boys to insanity. Sometimes, when Edward isn't particularly despondent, Jasper and Emmett make fun of him very lightly. At his best, he does things like drinking ginger-and-lemon tea, reading the latest issue of _American Baby. _Medical training aside, some days, he feels completely lost.

And then, the doorbell rings.

Grumbling to himself, he puts down the latest issue of _American Baby. _The baby fusses a bit when he lifts her from the bassinet, placing her little jaw gently on his shoulder. "Shhh," he murmurs softly. "We're OK, my little love." Cradling her gently, he pulls the door open…

…and regrets it instantly.

The girl before him has flaming red hair that puts his own locks to shame, in curls that spring wildly from the crown of her head. She has the bulging calves of a seasoned soccer player - and she guided Emmett and Edward towards James Hunter. ay through that aborted legal process with James, the boy mentioned something about a Victoria Williams. Isabella even playfully teased him about it.

The recognition dawns on him like a bucket of cold water, and it takes all his strength not to outwardly react. Edward…Edward doesn't know how much she knows, and that scares him shitless. He clutches the baby closer to his chest, happy the girl cannot see the baby's eyes. Hunter's eyes. He's so completely the baby's, but Elizabeth can slip through his fingers like sand.

Victoria's eyes widen, too. She goes ashen at the sight of the baby in Edward's arms; then she squints. Automatically, Edward cradled the back of Elizabeth's head, knowing those pale silvery locks are as incriminating as a trail of blood. The one woman he's ever loved was not blonde, and Edward certainly is not. And yet. Isabella _entrusted him _with the most precious thing in her life. He's not about to dessacrate that promise on some college sophomore's suspicion.

"Can I help you?" he says, in a tone so mild it surprises him.

"Dr. Cullen? My name is Victoria Williams," she says seriously, before faltering. Her eyes are huge with a mixture of dread and general terror. "I…uh.. I.." She fumbles a bit. Clearly, she has only practiced that one line. Edward is mildly relieved. She may not know, and in any case, would never have the resources to act on whatever hunch she has. Unless she triggers some kind of domino effect with the people that do.

Taking a heavy breath, Victoria bites down on her lip, shifting her feet. "I was…I – I was … I was dating James Hunter and he… I know he came to see you a couple of weeks ago and …"

Edward felt like an iron fist had snuck into his chest and started crushing his lungs, his heart. The color was draining from his face. He edged the door closer to the girl, inclined to just slam it in her face. _God, please, no, please…_

He forced a confused, puzzled smile. "Miss Williams, I'm sorry, but how could I know you're not with the press?" he manages to say smoothly, his heart pounding. If he hadn't gone so completely cold from head to toe, he'd be sweating profusely.

"I don't understand," the girl says.

"My family and I guard our privacy very carefully," he says, with a smile so wide it makes him want to twitch. "I don't quite understand what you're talking about, and I'd rather not risk oversharing with the tabloid press."

He doesn't wait for her response before backtracking, and very, very slowly, closing the door in her face.

* * *

_Nineteen Months_

It was hailing heavily outside in the late afternoon that day, and Edward was sitting with his baby in the nursery, reading _The Very Hungry Caterpillar. _Intelligent and alert, Lizzie started to point to the caterpillar with her chubby starfish hand. "Wewy hungwy peellar," she babbled happily, turning to look at him expectantly with those enormous, breathtaking blue eyes.

Edward let out a wonderous laugh, feeling like he was about to burst. He had almost burst into tears when she called him _Daddy, _in full, for the first time.

"Yes, my love," he cooed happily, kissing the top of her head. "That's the very hungry caterpillar."

Edward continued to read to her placidly, delighted when she babbled on, placing her little dimpled hands on the images before them. She babbles animatedly, almost as if she's telling him all about the story. Edward loves her so much.

It broke his heart that she was still missing other milestones, like clockwork. The pediatrician that helped deliver her – in a night that was so traumatic it beat out everything else – had predicted it almost immediately. Even then, the diagnosis was gutting. Cerebral palsy, likely at a high GMSCF.

Despite hours of physical therapy that destroyed Edward – it was uncomfortable for the baby, and she cried relentlessly – Lizzie had missed most milestones. She had not sat up. She had not crawled. She had not stood. Right around that month, she should have been walking. Despite Edward's best efforts at everything, the best that money could buy, the baby was not walking.

(At night, taking advantage of Zafrina, the new and competent babysitter, Edward drank his way through Edward Masen Sr.'s entire stock of cognac late at night. It was such a relief to feel like his thoughts were blurry).

And still, his daughter was _everything. _Edward lived for her smiles and her laugh. He really could not imagine what things would have been like without her.

Once the story was over, he cuddled her closer to his chest, running his fingers lightly across her little potbelly, smiling when she squealed with glee. He lifted her up and plopped her down by the sitting ring on the area rug, handing her the _Press Here_ book that she found endlessly entertaining.

Edward sat cross-legged opposite her and mindlessly began scrolling through his phone. When Elizabeth demanded his attention, he looked up obligingly. Otherwise, he scrolled carefully through his emails.

Ignoring that Carlisle and Jasper insisted that there was _nothing_ Edward could have done to prevent the tragedies, Edward foreswore medicine. He honestly felt cursed, like his touch alone would injure patients. Carlisle had been particularly aggresive, encouraging Edward to return to medicine, pointing out that what had happened – the back-to-back tragedies that had destroyed the girls he was entrusted with – was not his fault. Edward still felt that, had Isabella's circumstances allowed it, she would have sued him. The only way to honor that would be to avoid patients altogether.

Instead, he now took a sick kind of pleasure in capital venture investment in the medical field. He liked the kind of callous cruelty that the job demanded, and he enjoyed commercializing products when he was not otherwise occupied with his baby.

Or with appointments with the neurologist. Edward glanced at his watch and saw it was nearing 5:30. He rose to his feet and grabbed the baby monitor by the dresser.

"Zafrina?" he called gruffly into the monitor, using it like a walkie-talkie.

With military precision, Zafrina responded, "I'll be right up, Dr. Cullen."

Zafrina had worked for Edward for six weeks, and it had been the easiest six weeks of Edward's parental life. Oddly, he had grown to trust her more than anybody else. She was adept at caring for the baby. More importantly, perhaps, she was adept at managing the baby's father, in his bursts of grief, guilt and neurosis.

Edward sighed sadly when she walked in. "I'm going to see my wife's doctor," he reminded her. "I'll be back…at some point."

Some nights, Edward could barely look at his wife. Other nights, he was with her until late at night, just talking, caressing the back of her hand. Zafrina knew already that waiting up was fruitless.

Zafrina nodded, looking neither cold nor pitiful, and he loved her even more for it. "Have a good night, Dr. Cullen," she said in her thickly accented voice, handing Elizabeth one of those Fisher Prize boards that made lots of noise. "I'll feed her dinner and put her to bed by seven."

"Perfect," he said, surprised at how often he used that word to describe Zafrina's work. His expression changed completely when he turned to his baby. "Good night, darling," he said with a besotted, goofy smile. "Good night, my love. Can you say good night?"

He waved at her several beats, delighted when she finally caught up and waved back. "Bye-bye, Daddy," she said in her pipsqueak voice. "Goo-nay."

Edward smiled involuntarily and blew her a kiss.

His mood darkened considerably with every step he took away from the nursery. He thundered down the darkened stairs and into the garage with angry purposefulness. He slammed the door to his black Mercedes, too, and drove out of the garage so speedily it felt like he was begging for a ticket. The traffic as soon as he hit the freeway was painfully slow and Edward turned on a classical music station. He felt like listening to anything else grated on his nerves.

Edward did not enjoy strolling down the otherwise beautiful U Chicago. He had been an exceptional student – brilliant, tormented and introverted. Even compared to the other freshman at the institution, he had avoided socializing with his peers and fled away from campus regularly. He would have completely avoided U Chicago and its affiliated hospitals forever – but Dr. Pritzker was the best in his goddamned field. Edward sometimes liked to tell himself that he'd fled Seattle just for Pritzker, except that was a lie.

Unusually good-looking, Edward also unfortunately drew stares from the handful of students, residents and administrators that passed him by. Irritated, he trudged away from the parking lot and up to Dr. Pritzker's office. These trimonthly visits mixed him with a weird mixture of hopeless dread and self-imposed, depressive emotionlessness.

He announced himself quietly to the receptionist and forsaking dignity, plopped down on one of the couches like the insolent, bored adolescent he'd never been. He barely spared a glance to the woman sitting across from him. The little boy sitting next to her did catch his eye. The boy looked so… So like Edward, when he'd been a little boy. Forlorn, shy and a little intimidated by clearly masculine figures. He was staring at Edward with huge, awestruck eyes.

Surprisingly, Edward offered him a little smile.

"Mummy?" he said to the woman by his side, though she looked too old to be a five-year-old's mother. His accent was upper-crust British. "When can we go see Father?"

"Any minute now, Alec," she replied, brushing back his hair. "Read your book."

Pritzker came out a little afterwards, darkening Edward's mood again. The meeting was perfunctory and, increasingly – as gutting as the realization was – a little pointless. When Pritzker and Edward reemerged, the woman and her little boy were still waiting. Edward took another look at the woman. Despite everything, Edward still recognized – and attracted – model-like beautiful women, and the woman before him was exactly that. She looked old enough to be his mother, given the lines around her eyes and mouth, but she looked crisp and immaculate.

"Ah," Pritzker said. "I was hoping to introduce the two of you. Dr. Cullen, this is Jane Cavendish-Hastings. Her husband is interned across from Isabella."

Edward would have bristled at the mention of his wife, but it felt like the woman understood him perfectly. There was no maudlin sigh, no softening in her eyes, just a curt, understanding nod. Edward liked her. He held out his hand immediately, and the woman took it with her thin-boned, elegant hand.

"Pleasure," Edward lied.

"Both of you have an aversion to peer support groups," Pritzker said awkwardly, the way one might mention a shared fondness of sailing or of certain kinds of wine.

Athena Cavendish-Hastings let out a laugh like cold water. "It's so very American to make a public spectacle out of personal tragedy," she said.

"I couldn't agree more," he said earnestly. Athena appraised him carefully, eyeing him from head to toe with hawkish attention to detail. Edward arched an eyebrow. "I hope to see more of you, Mrs. Cavendish."

* * *

_Twenty-One Months_

Lizzie has her first surgery at twenty-one months. Edward gently coaxes her to drink apple juice, filled with sedatives, and shushes her when they stick an IV into her delicate little hand. Though Edward is all smiles for her, the moment Lizzie is wheeled into surgery – looking so tiny and helpless in a stretcher retrofitted for babies - he starts to unravel. Hands trembling, he sucks in breaths but finds the air stifling. He shoves past his parents and family, tears burning. By the time he makes it to Isabella, tears are falling into the crook of his neck.

He cries for a good while on her lap, mumbling apologies into the back of her wrist.

* * *

_Twenty-Four Months _

Edward goes to the newly reinstated family Sunday brunch because they so clearly love his baby. Lizzie is two years old and a week when Rosalie and Emmett announce they are starting an adoption process, having their eyes set on two siblings: a three-year-old girl named Emily, and a boy named Alexander.

Rosalie's holding the baby in her lap when she brings it up. Surprisingly, Edward does not mind. Her fingers are nimble and gentle as she runs her fingers along the baby's golden hair. The baby seems just as happy with Rosalie as she is to be held by anybody else in the family. Edward doesn't really mind, though he feels…vulnerable, without the baby on his lap.

Surprisingly, Edward cheers with the rest of the family when they announce the news, though the room's attention shifts to Lizzie, who claps happily.

* * *

_Two and a Month_

The first time he fucks - as a widower in all but name - he fucks Jane Cavendish.

Her husband, a man named Caius is just as wealthy as Edward, and apparently aristocratic. Jane is not interested in money or social pedigree. Her husband interned across from Isabella, and the relationship is purely out of convenience. They fuck for the very first time in the bathroom in Caius' suite, where she leads him at first with soft kisses that grow violent on the threshold.

It is Edward who hesitates. "Jane," he says seriously, pulling away. "Jane, this isn't right."

Jane breaks away and digs her nails into his shoulders, as if digging for blood. Electricity shoots right up through Edward and his cock hardens.

"He might as well be in Mars," Jane says roughly, and Edward feels a pang, because the description so neatly fits his Bella.

The matter is barely settled and Jane bends over the bathroom sink. Edward catches his own reflection in the mirror, realizing for the first time he's pallid and gaunt. There are gray hairs sprouting all over his temple; his eyes look beady because he's cried so much. Edward pounds her, relishing the lack of tenderness involved, and feeling like a teenager because _it's been so fucking long._

When it's over, Jane's movements are far from gentle, and her parting kiss is rough. "We should do this again in a proper bedroom," she instructs.

And they do. Edward starts to leave the house in the middle of the night, once or so every week. He and Jane - who reveals she's fifty-five - do it everywhere, like a pair of teenagers. Sometimes, they fuck in his car. Sometimes, they fuck in hers. On ocassion, they fuck in her bed. Edward would never dream of fucking anywhere near his baby, but Jane doesn't seem to mind that they slam headboards when her son is sleeping down the hall. To assuage his guilt, they start fucking in the middle of the day, when her son is at school.

She never expects missionary; she just expects him to be _good_ without being sentimental, and Edward is more than happy to oblige.

They fucked for the first time because Edward opened up to her. He found something so refreshing about her demeanour; like Edward, she's more attractive, intelligent and closed-off than most of her peers. She listens to his confessions of guilt without attempting to comfort him.

With Jane, Edward finally lives the concept of "friends with benefits" they way it was meant to be lived. Jane is obviously attracted to him, but not to his wealth or to the fact that he's a single parent. (Edward has found that being a single, wealthy father is irresitible to most women, who want to "Captain Von Trapp him" as Emmett likes to say). With Jane, it's pure, unadultared fucking. "I'm attracted to your pain," she says matter-of-factly.

He starts rebuilding his life around midday fucking sessions with a widow.

* * *

Fucking Jane helps him realize that he's lost as much muscle as he has lost weight. He starts to leave the house for the gym, where he gradually regains his build. _American Baby _suggests that new moms spend at least two to three hours taking care of themselves. Edward does exactly that; he starts to lift weights, swim laps and do heavy cardio. At first, it's gruesome: he lost nearly fifty pounds out of a mixture of stress, guilt and exhaustion.

It helps that Lizzie is so obviously _thriving. _She starts to talk in full sentences, telling him stories about everything and anything. Other adults are a little befuddled at how clearly attuned he is to everything, how clearly he understands her. Some idiot modelling scout approaches him to tell him his baby is so gorgeous he could make money at pageants and Pamper's. Her hair grows a shade or two darker, turning a lovely honey blonde that frames her face, which is strikingly similar to her mother's. When he's with her, everything is a source of wonderment and laughs.

Jenks informs him at a certain point that his wealth has tripled since he started investing in biotech and pharmaceuticals. He doesn't give a shit about the money; when Jenks suggests that he do it professionally, Edward almost spits in his face. "My daughter isn't old enough to start pre-school," he says, eyeing the man with evident disgust. When Lizzie's napping and he isn't body-building, though, Edward continues to invest.

He nearly bursts a blood vessel when someone from the _Tribune _calls to say they'd like to run an article on his "penchant for pharmaceutical investment." The last thing he wants is to draw attention to himself.

He and his little family are 1,172 miles away from Renée Dwyer; with a mixture of crippling guilt and overwhelming relief, he's kept tabs on her descent into alcoholism. That decreases the likelihood of any kind of...intrusion.

They're also 2,200 miles from Charlie Swan, Jacob Black and James Hunter, Sr. Despite the distance, they continue to hound him. He can't help but to see them, in random newspaper clippings and in street corners. He sees Charlie Swan in every knock in his door, in every ring of the telephone. Whenever he sees a man with long hair, even if it isn't charcoal black, his heart starts to pound in his throat.

It's the paranoia over that trio that makes him start taking Xanax.


End file.
